Thou shalt forgive and update!

All empirical evidences point at the inevitability of disappointment even if realistic expectations are placed on individuals. This problem emerges due to an inherent difficulty in obtaining sufficient behavioral samples to construct an accurate model, as well as, our tendency to ignore, misinterpret, and forget empirical evidences as a consequence of emotional involvement with the subject.

So, the solution is not to forgive and forget, but to forgive and update the model!

All about me!

agor balipa mipor tamami sandogh fadime shod. kin habtal farkhond. man tar hamin finslok? fodler haml. sodigh baher lotern bashid. mihal ermin farem! in dar mian for kamal!!!

Science, religion, and the origin of authority:

During a recent GOP presidential debate 3 out of 10 republican candidates expressed skepticism (if not denial) towards Evolution. In particular, one of the candidates elaborated that he wasn’t there when the world was created, so he doesn’t know. Thus, he chosed to believe in the "words of God”!

I wondered if it’s fair to call such an individual ignorant! I asked myself if I believed in evolution after all. At first the answer came to me as a comforting yes! At the same time it stroked me as shallow and lacking rigour! Here is why: for instance, I’ve never seen a DNA. But, I believe in Genes and their rules in encoding proteins that construct the very fabric of my body. How does this leap of faith happen?! In what way my belief in Genes differs from a religious person’s belief in God? Since, in practice, the average person does not know (in concrete terms) any more about the evolution than he/she knows about the existence of God, the real question becomes why he/she chooses to believe in one or the other. Does it all boil down to an arbitrary submission to an arbitrary authority?

As it is evident, by inspection, our submissiveness (conformity) to a particular school of thought is not arbitrary after all. For instance, one’s upbringing, particular culture, or education might explain it. However, as intelligent adults, we should be able reexamine our prejudices and to reselect our authorities. So, the real question becomes why one should believe in a scientist or a science-based establishment rather than a priest or a particular church in the matters of the origin of life and the universe? If that is the case, then it is only through educating the public about the basic premise of the “scientific method” (see [1]) and the “origin of authority in science” that one can hope to resolve the evolution vs. creationism dilemma dividing the American society.

But, how faithful are scientists in adhering to the principles of scientific investigation? To what extend the urge to stay competitive and profitable is overshadowing the process of publication and peer-review (the most important tenets of the scientific method)?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

Sonnet 138 - William Shakespeare

When my love swears that she is made of truth
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth,
Unlearnèd in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue;
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O, love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love, loves not to have years told.
Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flattered be.

-- William Shakespeare

Good-by a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Good-by, proud world, I'm going home,
Thou'rt not my friend, and I'm not thine;
Long through thy weary crowds I roam;
A river-ark on the ocean brine,
Long I've been tossed like the driven foam,
But now, proud world, I'm going home.

Good-by to Flattery's fawning face,
To Grandeur, with his wise grimace,
To upstart Wealth's averted eye,
To supple Office low and high,
To crowded halls, to court, and street,
To frozen hearts, and hasting feet,
To those who go, and those who come,
Good-by, proud world, I'm going home.

I'm going to my own hearth-stone
Bosomed in yon green hills, alone,
A secret nook in a pleasant land,
Whose groves the frolic fairies planned;
Where arches green the livelong day
Echo the blackbird's roundelay,
And vulgar feet have never trod
A spot that is sacred to thought and God.

Oh, when I am safe in my sylvan home,
I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome;
And when I am stretched beneath the pines
Where the evening star so holy shines,
I laugh at the lore and the pride of man,
At the sophist schools, and the learned clan;
For what are they all in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet.

CateGoRized

After spending two weeks in MIT I believe anybody who decides to come to this place invariably belongs to one of the following three categories:

1) Extremely passionate about science and engineering; such an individual will enjoy everyday of his stay and he/she will be stuck here for a long time.
2) Interested in politics and public policy making; for such a person the kth day of his/her sojourn in MIT is the (N-k)th count-down day, where N is the average time required for graduation. In other words, he/she might experience a thought time but will be one step ahead of many others in finding higher governmental/managerial positions.
3) A complete idiot!

Childhood origins of adult resistance to science

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/316/5827/996

innocent man...

Human dignity is an intrinsic, intimate, and absolute sense of honor; the very sense that brought about such noble ideas as human rights and democracy. Listening to Billy Joel’s "Innocent Man":
"Some people live with the fear of a touch
And the anger of having been a fool
They will not listen to anyone
So nobody tells them a lie
…
I am an innocent man"

it reminds me of the bleared boarder between one’s sense of dignity and the fear of violation, betrayal, and humiliation. A friend of mine once said she prefers to be a first hand friend rather than a second hand concubine.
I‘m not motivated to carry on this line of thought! For the very reason that, in practice, one often is better off acting spontaneously and go with the flow! Could it be wrong?

Yet another cycle ...

Today John commented that the there is a generational cycle that starts with a child from a poor lower social class, choosing an engineering career, as a way of making a decent living and moving up the social ladder. Engineering turns out to be- in particular- a suitable choice. since it requires hard work and diligence; characters that a determined person can acquire through discipline.
The next generation generally ends up pursuing a career in medicine, law, or a number of other higher level social sciences.
Psychology, philosophy, and a number of other liberal arts areas dominate the career choice of the descendents of these lawyers and doctors, whose children end up experiencing a modest life style. And so the cycle continues …. Makes me think!

Oscar Wilde on Poetry

A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes, the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets make a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realise.

Be Cool!

What does it take to be cool?
I'm preparing my presentation for my defense. I'm on a slide titled "Self-adjoint Operators Commuting with the Fourier Transform". A voice comes out of nowhere and tells me "be cool"! How rude! How true!

Life is the peace of contraries,
And Death is the proof of this war.

--Rumi

The age of Comformity

Most Americans want to be cultivated, but only comfortably cultivated. They dabble with the intellectual just enough to avoid being lowbrow and escape being highbrow. Middlebrowism looks like cultivation because it is so clearly superior to vulgarity, but to be satisfied with it is to make the good the enemy of the best. It merely dresses and domisticates the commonplace.

--The age of Comformity, Regnery

disconnected (firstcomet)

I’m all disconnected now
It wasn’t hard, like to know how?

You pull the plug from your gadgets
You leave you calendar unset

Then you put on your anti-noise headset
The rest is assisted by the upcoming sunset

If the music ain't up to your taste then pause it
If that didn’t quite work then just toss it!

I haven’t yet figured out the rest
But, I’ll try to do my best :-)

The Daylily Lullaby (firstcomet):

Sitting in the North-oval, facing towards the Boyd
The bells are ringing, and the sun is drifting away.
I wish everyday was a sunny day,
Every tree was a fruit tree,
Every seed an elixir; panacea of all ailments.

Then I wish I was a Daylily born in a sunny day,
Woken up by the gentle hands of the sun,
Boozed by the most limpid dews before the sun was up!
My day, my only day, is the pollination day;
Dispersing love freely, unknowingly, unceasingly!

But then the bells start to ring again:
Not just once, but twice, thrice, many times
And the nightingales begin to sing their favorite song:
The Daylily Lullaby!

OU--

5/17/2007

A vanished friend ...

Around the corner I have a friend,
In this great city that has no end,

Yet the days go by and weeks rush on,
And before I know it, a year is gone.

And I never see my old friends face,
For life is a swift and terrible race,

He knows I like him just as well,
As in the days when I rang his bell.

And he rang mine but we were younger then,
And now we are busy, tired men.

Tired of playing a foolish game,
Tired of trying to make a name.

"Tomorrow" I say! "I will call on Jim
Just to show that I'm thinking of him."

But tomorrow comes and tomorrow goes,
And distance between us grows and grows.

Around the corner, yet miles away,
"Here's a telegram sir," "Jim died today."

And that's what we get and deserve in the end.
Around the corner, a vanished friend.

-anonymous

Social Clock!

Give me four-five more years and I'll attend.... I think I told you once that I'm at odd with the social clock! You never asked me why ... because …. The way I look at it life is too long and too short. Now, it really becomes matter of attitude; in general, when it is longer it is also slower and when it is shorter it is much faster. Fast is one thing and fast as "it was so fast I did not realize it passed me by" is something else. But, these are all beside the point. Why the social clock anyways? Expectations and so forth … which take us back to our original discussion.
By the way, I realized capitalism can not allow unbounded individualism. It can only tolerate it at small scales. That’s the state of affairs in America.

In progress...

What am I to make of myself? The vicious cycle of me, my thoughs, no thoughts, my life, mylife, Mylife .... Nevertheless, still in progress ...!

The Girl From Ipanema: Antonio Carlos Jobim

Also see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKfl15c-Kh0

Moon River

Moon River, wider than a mile,

I'm crossing you in style some day.
Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker,
Wherever you're going I'm going your way.
Two drifters off to see the world;
There's such a lot of world to see.
We're after the same rainbow's end,
Waiting 'round the bend,
My huckleberry friend,
Moon River and me.